Five winners and five losers of the British Formula 1 Grand Prix

A historic, experimental British Grand Prix weekend was the most dramatic race of the 2021 Formula 1 season to date.

It started with a first-lap collision between F1 title protagonists Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and ended with a late attack to a notable rematch win for the home favorite.

Here are our winners and losers of the 10th round of the 2021 season …

winner

Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton fared much better than Verstappen when F1 title rivals battled at Copse when Hamilton plunged inward in an ambitious attempt to take the lead in his home race.

After Verstappen was dropped from the race due to his massive fall, Hamilton received a 10-second time penalty for the collision. But the seven-time world champion put on a breathtaking rematch to win against all odds.

On the subject of matching items

McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes Valtteri Bottas offered little resistance to an attacking Hamilton who chased and overtook long-time leader Charles Leclerc in the same corner in which he collided with Verstappen.

Hamilton’s eighth British GP win was a significant moment in the title race as he enjoyed a massive jump on points over Verstappen to reduce the Dutchman’s lead in the championship to eight points.

On the subject of matching items

Mercedes

It was a great day in the office for Mercedes as the reigning world champion took away a large part of Red Bull’s championship lead with a 1-3 finish at Silverstone.

While Valtteri Bottas will regret two poor starts on Sunday, the Finn played the perfect team game to support Hamilton’s bid to win.

A much-needed result and confidence boost for Mercedes as it ended a streak of five straight defeats to Red Bull.

Charles Leclerc

The drama and aftermath of the clash between Hamilton and Verstappen ultimately overshadowed an inspired and stellar drive by Charles Leclerc.

After exploiting the anger between Hamilton and Verstappen on the first lap, Leclerc was in the lead, which he maintained with a strong restart in the standing position.

The Monegasque did a fantastic job of keeping Hamilton in check in the first stint and appeared to be heading for a surprise win until Hamilton’s late attack.

Leclerc wasn’t put off by intermittent engine problems throughout the race as he was ultimately forced to settle for a brilliant but frustrating second place.

Daniel Ricciardo

It’s been a tough start to 2021 for Daniel Ricciardo, but the Australian showed flashes of the Ricciardo we know with a much stronger performance at Silverstone.

Ricciardo was closer to Lando Norris’ pace all weekend, finishing just 0.002 seconds behind his McLaren teammate in qualifying to take a respectable P7. In the sprint qualifying he converted that to P6 and went one better in the race and finished fifth.

Landing way behind Norris, who was hampered by a slow pit stop, the Australian made a significant step forward at the British GP that he will want to build on next time in Hungary.

Fernando Alonso

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso is really back.

The Spaniard starred in the very first sprint race by storming his way through the field and backing this up with another strong performance at the British GP, finishing in seventh place.

Alonso continues to lead Alpine Attack as he scored points for the fifth race on the jump with an expertly guided ride that highlighted his keen racing craft and years of experience.

loser

Max Verstappen

The most important result of yesterday’s race was that Verstappen survived his massive 51G crash unscathed.

It is unbelievable proof of the strength of modern F1 cars and the high level of safety in sport that the Dutchman was discharged from hospital injured only a few hours after the accident. With that in mind, he was arguably the day’s biggest winner.

But from a sporting point of view, the British GP was a hammer blow for Verstappen. While the Red Bull driver was hospitalized, his championship lead of 33 points was dramatically reduced to just eight after Hamilton took the victory.

Red Bull

It was an all-round terrible day for Red Bull. The team was already in the back seat before Verstappen was dropped off at Copse. Sergio Perez had to start a race to catch up after his spin and his failure in the sprint from the pit lane.

At best, he only came out for a few small points before making a second pit stop. Perez collided with Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen in the closing stages when he only finished 16th.

The only positive thing was that Perez’s fastest lap at the last second prevented Hamilton from scooping an extra point.

With a 44 point lead over Mercedes in the championship at the beginning of the weekend, the lead of the Milton Keynes team has shrunk to just four points.

Carlos Sainz

While Charles Leclerc was painfully close to a shock victory, Carlos Sainz had a much more difficult weekend.

After the Spaniard recovered greatly on the first lap of George Russell’s sprint race at Brooklands and slipped into sixth place, the Spaniard put in another solid run on Sunday.

Sainz was in third place until his pit stop, but a problem cost him time and caused him to lose more places when he reappeared. Without the problem he would almost certainly have finished fifth and ahead of Ricciardo.

Sebastian Vettel

Seeing Sebastian Vettel spinning all by himself brought back memories of 2018-19 when the German suffered a series of similar pirouettes in the wheel-to-wheel battle.

At the restart, the four-time world champion missed the chance for solid points when he came down the old pit straight against the old archenemy Fernando Alonso from Woodcote.

Vettel’s miserable race finally ended on lap 40 when Aston Martin retired his car due to a cooling problem.

AlphaTauri

For AlphaTauri it was a weekend to forget, as the Faenza team only scored one point at Silverstone.

Pierre Gasly struggled in qualifying and could not make up any ground on his way to a low 12th place in the sprint race, which the ad called AlphaTauris “worst performance” of 2021 so far.

It didn’t get any better on Sunday either. Gasly was in ninth place but had to make an unscheduled pit stop five laps in front of the house after suffering a damaged rear left tire.

The only consolation for AlphaTauri was a major setback from Yuki Tsunoda. After his frustrating Q1 elimination, the Japanese rookie fought his way up from 16th on the grid to grab the last point offered in 10th place.